Google's Top Searches of 2018: Dead Celebrities, World Cup, and Meghan Markle

December 12, 2018

By Carlo Versano

What do Stan Lee, Logan Paul, and the royal wedding have in common?

They were among the most Googled terms of 2018.

Justin Burr, the search trends expert at Google, gave Cheddar some insight into the top Google trends of the year.

Google searches can provide one of the more unvarnished looks into our own psyches ーand the annual compendium of what we searched for often does a better job of capturing a moment in time, or particular mood, than any poll or survey.

As is often the case, celebrity deaths made up the bulk of the top Google searches of 2018, Burr said. Of the top 10 searches this year, seven were for celebrities who had died: Avicii, Mac Miller, Stan Lee, Anthony Bourdain, XXXTentacion, Kate Spade, and Stephen Hawking. The other three: "Black Panther," Meghan Markle, and the World Cup. (The World Cup won the distinction of being the top search in both the U.S. and around the world.)

"People always go to Google when there are deaths," Burr said, "to understand who they were and what they did."

In news searches, the Cup once again reigned supreme, followed by Hurricane Florence, the Mega Millions jackpot, the royal wedding, and election results.

Burr said Google saw a huge spike in queries for "how to vote" leading up to the midterm election, which would jibe with the results ー which showed turnout was at a 50-year high.